Registry entries for new versions of packages

mikehutch · Postby **mikehutch** » Fri May 22, 2015 5:15 am

When a new version of an InstallAware package is installed on a computer is it usual for the GUID entries for earlier versions of that package to remain in the registry? We have a customer who has had several releases of the same application each with a new version number. There are entries for every version in the registry.

An additional problem is that they are currently in a position where if they try to install the latest version of the package they get a message saying "Unable to uninstall old version. Please uninstall it yourself using Control Panel..... The installation source for this product is not available. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it."

It isn't possible to uninstall from Control Panel, Programs and Features, so they're stuck. can anyone suggest a solution?

Postby **FrancescoT** » Fri May 22, 2015 11:28 am

Dear Mike,

for what concerns your first question, please have a look at the following link.
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10258

The other problem instead seems caused by a system corruption. You may try the following tool from Microsoft.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall

Hope this helps you.

Regards

mikehutch · Postby **mikehutch** » Wed May 27, 2015 2:06 pm

Thank you. How do I access the script referred to as an attachment in the first link you referred me to?

mikehutch · Postby **mikehutch** » Wed May 27, 2015 2:15 pm

I don't think I mentioned previously that in this instance the MSI installers are being used rather than the EXE. Thanks again.

mikehutch · Postby **mikehutch** » Thu May 28, 2015 5:51 am

Ignore my question about the file download. I've worked out how to do that.

Postby **FrancescoT** » Thu May 28, 2015 10:38 am

mikehutch · Postby **mikehutch** » Fri May 29, 2015 4:54 am

Our customer isn't happy about using the Microsoft Fixit tool as they will not have visibility of the registry changes that are made. They have asked whether there is a way of manually deleting the relevant registry entries instead.

Postby **FrancescoT** » Fri May 29, 2015 12:18 pm

Dear Mike,

you should tell to your customer that is safer to use the tool instead to manipulate the system registry manually.
It exists the risk of compromising the system.

Anyway if the customer wants to proceed in this way, it should try to remove from registry any entry that refers to the installed package.
Generally the main entry is available under; "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\<PRODUCTCODE>

Of course, the customer will be the sole responsible for any possible issue.

Regards